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As the COVID-19 vaccine continues to roll out – it is now starting to become clear that one day in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to get back to life as we once knew it.
That is music to the ears of literally billions of people across the globe as lockdowns continue in many parts of the world and the global death toll continues to rise. While there will one day be a day where we can take off our masks to go about our daily lives, there are some really important reasons why you are going to have to continue wearing surgical masks even after you get the COVID-19 vaccine.
After all, even Dr. Anthony Fauci himself has clarified that just because people are getting vaccinated does not mean that those people should be abandoning the health measures that they have adopted and established over the last year.
“It’s not going to be a light switch” back to the pre-COVID-19 days he said back in November. What that means is that even though you may already be vaccinated or getting ready to receive your first dose of the vaccine, you will not want to get comfortable with the idea of leaving your home without a surgical mask in the near future.
Though that may be somewhat disappointing to hear, let’s break down some of the most important reasons why you will have to continue wearing masks even after you get the vaccine.
The COVID-19 vaccine does not provide 100 percent protection
While the data released about the efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been incredibly positive – as both are known to be quite a bit of 90 percent effective against COVID-19 – that amount is not 100 percent.
What that means is that even if you do get the vaccine, there is still a slight chance that you could get sick with the novel coronavirus. That is especially true if your lifestyle demands that you are around a lot of people who could be infected.
While the COVID-19 vaccine is still considered to be a miracle of modern science and medicine despite the fact that it does not offer 100 percent protection because once enough people are vaccinated, it will – at least hypothetically – become nearly impossible for the virus to transmit from one person to another.
Once that is the case, we will finally all be able to take our masks off and show our bright smiles and breath the fresh air once again. Until then, there is no doubt that it is going to be better to be safe than sorry.
There are currently finite numbers of the vaccine
If you have listened to news radio or watched any news on your television over the last couple of months, chances are good that you are well aware of the fact that there is still quite a large shortage of the vaccine. In fact, Pfizer and Moderna have both stated that in 2021, they will likely be able to make only about 1.3 billion and somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion doses, respectively.
That means that there are still going to be billions of people who are not vaccinated by the end of the year. For that reason, experts are expecting that it is going to take quite some time for enough people to get vaccinated for there to be a real impact on the way that we are currently living our lives.
Dr. Amesh Adalja has already told people that people who have been vaccinated are going to be “recommended to wear masks until at least the public health emergency is somewhat behind us” in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 despite the fact that a growing number of people within our society are indeed getting vaccinated.
Asymptomatic spread is a major concern
After reading the previous reason, you might be wondering “well why should I worry about the spread if I am vaccinated?” There is one simple answer that will likely convince you to continue to wear a mask all on its own.
At current, it is believed that about 50 percent of those who come down with COVID-19 show absolutely no symptoms whatsoever. This means that there are likely millions – or perhaps tens of millions – of people who have contracted COVID-19 without having ever known that they have it.
That is part of what has made it so hard to contain and so deadly.
While there is some belief that the COVID-19 vaccine will make it impossible for people who have been vaccinated to pass it on at all, not enough research has been done to confirm that as a scientific fact. What that means is that there is a possibility that even when you get the COVID-19 vaccine, you may be able to have the virus in your body and pass it onto people who have not yet been vaccinated. If this is true, then people who are vaccinated and start to behave riskily while not wearing a mask could become incredibly dangerous to the general public.
That is especially true because it has been proved that wearing a mask is best at stopping the spread from one person to another, rather than protect the wearer from the vaccine. So, if someone who has not been vaccinated is wearing the mask, but someone who is infected by asymptomatic is not, it is quite possible that the non-vaccinated mask-wearer could still get infected.
The last thing people who are vaccinated would want to do is to become dangerous to strangers or the people they love around them.
Though it is quite possible that people who get the vaccine are not capable of spreading the virus, one thing that we have all learned over the last year or so is that it is far better to be as safe as possible when risking the possible spread of infection.